


Life is ephemeral

by bonhamhcarter



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 30 Days of Caryl, F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonhamhcarter/pseuds/bonhamhcarter
Summary: Written for Rhinozilla's "30 Days of Caryl" fanfiction challenge on Tumblr. Day 5: caryl moment with Judith.





	Life is ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank krissyg927 for beta and bigdarylhead for share how much she miss see Daryl babysitting and (unknowingly) give me an idea.
> 
> You gonna notice this, I have a slight tendency to write caryl stories with children, although not always their own. I can't help, they're so adorable to keep my mind quiet and don't write anything.
> 
> This story is postes on ninelivesarchive too. It's my story, so it's not a copy or anything.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy it! Good reading!

They were going through difficult days. Far from ignoring the meaning of a difficult day these days, but with so many sleepless nights - that is,  _when_  they slept, because for most of the time they couldn’t stop even to rest for a day or two. After the sad loss of Beth and Tyreese, both sadly resulting from the great ironies of destiny, needing to fall back on the road because they didn’t have a safe place and far enough from Atlanta to live, the group felt increasingly exhausted both physically and emotionally.

The water was coming to an end, the supplies were long gone, surviving at the expense of Daryl's scanty rodents, and Judith's infant vitamin supplement being in full swing. Georgia's heat was hellish enough to cause heat stroke, draining all the remaining energy from its pores and dehydrating them. It hadn’t rained for weeks, so the rivers were at their lowest level and even the dry weather hurt the nose and throat to breathe.

One day, exhausted and about to suffer an attack by four dogs - or even better-sized wolves - equally greedy and ferocious, Sasha saved them from bites and probable infections by shooting it with her weapon in a great excess of anger and frustration. This assured them a break to rest their legs, take their breath away and a meal that, given the condition they were in, was categorized minimally as satisfactory and sufficient.

After another couple of hours of walking back to the road at the start of a downpour, Daryl returned from the forest to the rest of the group informing them of the existence of a barn. It wasn’t the most appropriate due to the poor conservation of the building, as well as bringing up sad and frustrated memories of the time they lived on the Greene farm. For the greatest amount of time, Sophia's loss was a very vivid loss for himself, and especially for Carol. However, the group had no other choice and, in view of the great storm to come, they needed to shelter as quickly as possible.

+++

Few misadventures in life are silly, never enough. Once they were safe inside the barn already cleared of walkers and they cleaned the rest of the weapons, clothes, and leftovers of canned ones abandoned by the old homeless ones. They put their due belongings in the places where they would rest and would spend the rest of the night, the already intense rain outside had become even worse, bringing on a storm and drawing even more biting into their direction.

This required Daryl's guard to be put aside to defend the great rotten wooden gate, since the chains wrapped around the latch were no longer enough to secure them. Maggie, drawn by the sudden tinkling of chains, ran toward Daryl to help him, catching Sasha's attention, and consequently one of the other members of the group. All of them, unceasingly, without exception, including Father Gabriel, were forced against the door, reaching their limit and using the sparse pool of unknown energy in their organism. Their feet slid against the earthen floor, now turned into mud by the rain coming in through the cracks of the barn, mingling with their sweat; the storm bringing with it numerous thunderings and illuminating the night sky with the dangerous fall of lightning; Judith's poignant cry, allied with the deafening growl of the biters outside, clawing, clapping their rotten teeth, pushing against each other like a great molecular agitation of a carbonated drink bottled with the least possible input of oxygen gas.

It was exhausting, desperate and agonizing, to say the least. Though the storm had passed, no one dared to withdraw from their posts until they had completely ceased to hear the walkers grunting. If they were able to survive the storm, they wouldn’t allow themselves to be carried away by sudden relief and mere survival and allow an invasion of the walkers.

Once in silence except for the sound of light rain falling into the woods outside, the group allowed themselves to rest, withdrawing without saying a single word, just wiping their arms and faces with slightly damp clothes, removing the layer of wet clothes, stretching its on the wooden pillars and settling against blocks of hay, letting themselves be carried away by exhaustion in a deep and deserved sleep.

Daryl, however, sacrificing himself again for the sake of his family, set himself up for the second consecutive sleepless night assuming the role of guard. Arguing that he was unable to rest with all the excess adrenaline running in his body, in reality, his real reason was that he couldn’t bear to get carried away by such a low need and risk the lives of the people he loved again - once he wasn’t there at the right moment to help them when strictly necessary.

The rest of the night went well, with a steady but fairly harmless shower falling; its sound merging with the snores and deep breaths of the others inside the barn. The archer, to ward off sleep and give himself something to do while keeping his ears tuned out, prickled himself to repair a small box of Maggie containing a spinning ballerina, removing a pebble from the gears, the reason for making it impossible for the music play continuously and the dancer turns a full turn. He reflected on the need to find larger and more consistent animals for each hunt, with pairs of owls and squirrels no longer enough to feed about fifteen people, although time and food shortages for the animals themselves were the main reasons for its migration, and Daryl's return with his hands shaking. Moreover, enough time had passed to they were on the road for more than three weeks, bringing again the concern and responsibility of keeping his family safe.

It was just at dawn when Judith awoke, whimpering and suddenly attracting her brother's attention, the others remaining unruffled and synchronized in their snoring. Carl quickly leaned back on his elbow, rubbing his eyes hard to pay attention to his sister's demands, worried about which need was now most undesirable, given the shortage of infant formula and disposable diapers, leaving only cloth diapers and bad enough to be cleaned at the time and place they were in the moment.

Reaching his pack, pulling out his belongings until he reached the can of formula, Daryl rose from his seat by the gate, crossing the barn to fall to his knees at his feet.

"Sleep," he told the boy. “Lemme take care of ‘er. I'm already on my feet.”

"I believe she's hungry." Carl nodded and lay down again, adjusting and closing his eyes.

“Ya haven’t escaped starvation, have ya, asskicker?” Daryl teased bitterly with a crooked smile, removing the lid from the bottle and mixing the formula in the water. "I hope we don’t get to that point."

Picking up the tearful girl from the floor with her chubby arms stretched out, swinging in the air, he tucked her lying in his arms, handing her the bottle and rising to walk from side to side of the barn. He cradled her gently, staring intently into the depths of her eyes, muttering an old lullaby she remembered hearing Carol singing to the girl still in prison when she was just a baby.

Walking calmly, taking two steps back and forth, repeatedly, Daryl took Judy's empty bottle and threw it with a soft thump on Carl's backpack and positioning the girl in a different way, her feet wrapping his chest, hugging him, and her head gently resting on his shoulder. He held her legs and buttocks with his left arm as he brought her closer to him with his other arm, gently caressing her thin golden hair.

He was still singing to her, even as she was almost asleep, when Carol rose from her bed and went to meet him, sitting again in a heap of dry straws and leaning against a block of hay. She smiled softly as she met his gaze, her eyes gleaming even with poor lighting.

Her heart squeezed instantly, not resisting to return a small smile. Her gray hair was still a little messed up in an incredibly beautiful way because of the time she had spent lying down. It was unbelievable that he could love as much a woman as he had ever loved any other in his life. Her clear eyes, her shy smile, her inner strength, her freckles, her clavicles and gray hair... everything. There was nothing, at all, that he wished to withdraw from his wife, if not the fact of her still not being entirely his own.

It was only when she smiled a toothy grin that Daryl realized he had walked toward her. He was one or two paces away. She blushed softly and slapped the emptiness beside him, asking him to sit next to her and keep her company. With an unintelligible murmur, he did as she asked, sitting so close that their shoulders brushed against each other. He squatted in a reclining position, grunting as he finally found a position that would relieve the sharp pain in his lower back, quickly hiding a fist that Carol hadn’t missed.

"You should rest," she said.

"And so should you.”

She sighed.  Hell , everyone should try to sleep. It was a particularly difficult night on a long and arduous journey.

"You shouldn’t be awake, though," he told her, turning his head to meet her eyes.

"I couldn’t sleep since yesterday.”

They were silent for a few minutes, alternating between looking through the shaggy fringes of Judith's hair and watching her breath deepening as she fell asleep, lips parted wide enough to gently blow on his neck.

"You're very good to her," Carol says, her eyes shining.

"Nah. She's good to me. She doesn’t mind sleeping on an arm as hard as that hay.”

He elbowed the block behind him, as if to prove his point.

"You  _are_.”

And Daryl just grunted in response, drawing a smile to his lips, internally very happy and pleased to have the little girl's confidence. It symbolized very strongly what the hope for this world meant, the motivation to keep fighting, to commit more and more, and never to let oneself surrender. Judith reminded him of the great and good things that have passed through his life, a living reminder never to risk losing.

Sighing, Carol reclined in the same position as Daryl, letting her head fall toward him and following the length of her tangled hair with her eyes.

"Sleep," he repeated to her, looking deeply into her eyes, feeling her stomach twist in anticipation.

She just nodded lazily and closed her eyes, and Daryl might never have wished so badly to be a bit braver and have the freedom to be able to kiss her gently, first on her lips and then on her forehead, as a delicate sign of his affection and zeal. All those deep words that rose to his chest countless times but could not emit.

As if sensing her exuberance without even opening her eyes, Carol slowly let her head fall on the archer's shoulder, using it like a pillow and leaning further toward him, touching their whole arms.

With a deep sigh, he felt his heart pounding in his throat and his stomach in a knot tied even more tightly than before, as he sweated cold and tingled him from head to toe. Determined not to waste any more time, given the ephemerality of today's life, where one day you’re alive and well with your family and in the other you’re fucking killed by a miserable bite on the arm, Daryl stroked his cheek on top of her head and reciprocated - also using her as the support.

In this life you only live once, and in the face of all the conflicts you faced daily and the uncertainty about tomorrow, even though there was no exchange of words about them, they both knew what that subtle but great gesture meant. And this was his way of saying  _I love you_ .


End file.
